House passes bill to end cuts to unemployment
By Catherine Candisky

The Columbus Dispatch

It’s an amazing turn of events for a proposal that has lingered in the legislature for more than a year and a half.

The House unanimously approved a bill yesterday to make senior citizens eligible for full unemployment benefits when they lose their jobs.

In fact, lawmakers added language to the bill to make it effective immediately upon the signature of Gov. Ted Strickland, avoiding the standard 90-day wait.

The Senate, which unanimously passed the bill in May, is expected to concur today with additions made in the House and send the bill to the governor.

“It’s an issue I’m supportive of and look forward to signing the bill,” said Strickland, who put aside earlier reservations about the proposal.

Welcome to the fast track.

Senate Bill 116, by Sen. Joy Padgett, R-Coshocton, will abolish Ohio’s so-called Social Security offset, a move that senior citizens and their advocates have sought for years.

Ohio is the only state in the nation where 100 percent of a person’s Social Security is subtracted from his or her unemployment compensation. As a result, senior citizens who lose their jobs receive reduced unemployment benefits, and often none at all.

“Ohio’s current unemployment compensation system is blatantly unfair to low-income seniors who must continue to work after retirement age in order to stay financially afloat,” Padgett said.

“… Employers already make contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Program on their employees’ behalf regardless of their age, so why should Ohio’s seniors not be receiving the same benefit as their younger co-workers?”

Philip E. Cole, executive director of the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies, said seniors who are working at the same time they are collecting Social Security are doing so because they need the money — and losing a job is as hard for them as it is a younger person.

“When the state says to them, ‘We will deny you what should be yours because you are older,’ the state only makes their lives harder,” he said.

Ohio is poised to join 41 other states that allow Social Security recipients to collect full unemployment benefits. Eight states have a 50 percent offset, deducting half of a person’s Social Security from his or her unemployment compensation.

“It is time for Ohio to move in this direction. Senior citizens deserve no less,” Rep. Larry L. Flowers, R-Canal Winchester, told his colleagues before the House vote.

Rep. Michael J. Skindell, a Lakewood Democrat who sought the “emergency clause,” said it will make the bill effective immediately and ensure that unemployment benefits are restored before the holidays.

“Otherwise, seniors won’t be eligible before the end of January,” he said.

Thousands of senior citizens will benefit from the legislation, noted Zach Schiller, research director for Policy Matters Ohio, a Cleveland research group.

According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, as many as 4,600 seniors will qualify for benefits. The estimated cost of those unemployment claims range from $12.4 million to $24.8 million a year.

The balance of Ohio’s unemployment compensation fund is $548 million.

Despite the delays, the proposal had no organized opposition, although the Ohio Chamber of Commerce has expressed concern about the effect the legislation will have on the unemployment compensation fund.

The governor and others talk a good game about alternative energy. Then they embrace Senate legislation that should be much stronger

Columbus Dispatch

Ted Strickland and other Democrats campaigned across the state last year touting the economic promise of renewable and advanced energy sources. An Ohio bleeding manufacturing jobs? Alternative energy sources would lead to new realms of employment. The governor pressed forward on this front in unveiling his plan for restructuring the state’s electricity industry (with a deadline looming for full and misguided deregulation in January 2009). He outlined a requirement that by 2025, 25 percent of the electricity in Ohio must be generated from the likes of clean coal, nuclear and fuel cells, and half of the standard met through renewables such as wind, solar and hydro power.

The governor has noted that other states have moved ahead more quickly. He has talked rightly and repeatedly about Ohio needing to play catch-up, making the kind of impression that would attract investors in advanced and renewable energy sources.

In that way, the governor deserves credit for proposing the goal. Unfortunately, his plan lacked such elements as benchmarks necessary to measure and achieve progress. Worse, the rewrite of his legislation by the Senate Energy & Public Utilities Committee (delivered last week) backs away further, suggesting that compliance won’t be enforced until 2025, denying the Public Utilities Commission even modest tools in rulemaking to achieve enforcement.

The committee’s decision to impose an arbitrary price cap of 3 percent on the implementation of the standard diminishes in another way the state’s profile as a place for advanced and renewable energy sources. As Janine Migden-Ostrander, the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, explained to the committee on Monday, ”a utility could build an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle coal plant, hit the cap and then never have to provide any renewable energy.”

The governor and his advisers insist that the nearly two dozen states with precise interim goals, plus enforcement mechanisms, fail to account for the uncertainty in the market. The Strickland team cites New Jersey having second thoughts (due to the steep expense) about its goal of tapping solar power for 2 percent of its electricity. Both contentions largely dodge the point. Everyone gets the uncertainty. The purpose of regular benchmarks and enforcement is to signal serious intent, an Ohio as eager as other states to move forward. The mistake New Jersey made was focusing so narrowly on solar.

On Friday, Policy Matters Ohio, a Cleveland-based think tank, issued a report revealing the puny stake the state has made in its Advanced Energy Fund, a pool of money designed to encourage investment in clean energy projects. Again, other states do better. They grasp more firmly the potential to leverage private investment dollars.

An Ohio determined to achieve the goal set by Ted Strickland, to be a national leader in clean energy technologies, must have a robust Advanced Energy Fund. It must have clear benchmarks and enforcement mechanisms for developing a portfolio of alternative energy sources.

National legislation to help those facing foreclosure yet to be pushed through; state works on own measures.
By Jessica Wehrman

Dayton Daily News

WASHINGTON — — Over five years, Rex and Janet Puckett of Dayton developed a habit: They would periodically pack up their belongings to prepare for impending foreclosure, then unpack again a few weeks later.

The couple refinanced their three-bedroom ranch home, near Jamaica Run Golf Course southwest of Dayton, in 2001 with the expectation that they’d get $25,000 to do updates including a new roof.

Instead of $25,000, they got somewhere less than half of that, with the rest going to fees. Rex Puckett endured a heart attack and a stroke which doctors pinpointed in part to his high stress levels. The company that renegotiated their loan has since gone out of business, and the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center finally helped the Pucketts renegotiate their loan. The Pucketts kept their house.

No national help yet

As the foreclosure crisis continues to squeeze families like the Pucketts, no relief as yet has come from Washington. Congress has held numerous hearings on the issue, but has yet to send a bill to President Bush for his signature that tightens lending policies or helps homeowners at-risk of foreclosure.

Bush, meanwhile, threatened to veto a House bill passed earlier this fall that forgives the tax burden homeowners face when they are foreclosed upon or when part of their mortgage is forgiven. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is pushing a similar version of the bill in the Senate and said he is working with the administration to iron out disagreements on it.

Voinovich is convinced Congress will not recess for the year without doing something. Thousands of adjustable rate mortgages will reset by the end of this year, putting more homeowners’ monthly payments out of reach. “There’s a crisis out there,” he said.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Congress can only do so much. He said President Bush should use the power of his office to “jawbone” companies into renegotiating loans with homeowners at risk of foreclosure. “The president has not used the power of his office,” he said.

The foreclosure problem is particularly acute in southwest Ohio. According to a Policy Matters Ohio report released last spring, Montgomery County ranked second only to Cuyahoga County in foreclosure filings in 2006, with 5,076 filings. The report was compiled using data from the Ohio Supreme Court.

Katie Turner of Dayton barely escaped becoming one of those numbers. Turner, already struggling with depression, refinanced in the aftermath of her husband’s 1997 death and watched her adjustable rate mortgage go from $527 to more than $865 over a three-year period. When she got behind on payments — a result of her Social Security check being stolen — her mortgage again increased to more than $1,000.

The Miami Valley Fair Housing Center helped her renegotiate her adjustable rate loan with the same company.

It’s sweet relief for Turner, who still remembers how her husband Gil gushed over the two-bedroom home when he bought it in 1988.

“He was like, ‘Wife,’ — he always called me wife — ‘it’s got everything except the picket fence,’” she said. “This is my dream house. I love this house.”

Jim McCarthy, the fair housing center’s president, said the center first started seeing trouble brewing in 1999, when its clients — primarily people who couldn’t get a loan because of low income or discrimination — suddenly became clients who received loans only to see their terms change rapidly.

His agency also suddenly saw older people with long-term, low-interest loans coming in and paying them because they were refinancing into a subprime loan. McCarthy and other center staff investigated, and found they were being push-marketed by subprime lenders. “We were all sort of flabbergasted by the degree to which we were seeing craziness in the markets, craziness in the documents coming into the office,” he said.

By the fall of 2001 the center, with the blessing of the Montgomery County Commission, began working on education, outreach and intervention programs for people at risk of foreclosure. He said so far, the center has helped 361 families or homeowners renegotiate their loans to avoid foreclosure.

“We started sounding the warning to elected officials back in 2000,” McCarthy said. “And here we are in 2007 and now finally some elected officials get it and are saying all the right things, but it’s still going be a long time before we see a real legislative cure to this.”

Why the inactivity?

A host of reasons are given for Congress’ inactivity. First, Congress is wrestling with a slew of other issues in addition to its traditional duties of passing spending and authorizing bills. Many of them are points of contention — Congress and the President are fighting over issues including the war in Iraq and children’s health insurance.

And finally, it’s not an easy issue to tackle: The crisis includes at-risk homeowners, mortgage lenders and brokers, and industries influenced by the subprime market. There’s no easy fix.

Last week, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., introduced a bill that created a new set of consumer protection rules for U.S. mortgage lenders, brokers and investors. The bill would require “a mortgage originator to act solely in the best interest of the consumer, including finding the residential mortgage loan that best meets the needs of the borrower,” and would bar lenders from steering borrowers toward high-cost loans.

In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland has asked subprime lenders to work with the state to modify loans, identify and notify at-risk borrowers, waive late fees and penalties and take other steps to prevent foreclosures. If lenders choose not to participate, he said, he will seek legislation to prevent foreclosures. The proposal got a chilly response last week from lenders, who called the proposal well-intentioned but ill-conceived.

Rex Puckett is just glad somebody could help him. A contractor by trade, he’s disheartened by the sight of homes abandoned by homeowners who didn’t escape foreclosure. Even as he and his wife packed and unpacked, he still worked on his beloved home, emptying his savings account to take care of the place where he and Janet raised their children.

“It’s the last little corner of Montgomery County that’s kind of country,” he said. “It’s home and we have good memories here.”

The Akron Beacon Journal

By Dennis J. Willard

COLUMBUS: Pregnant women working for small companies shouldn’t start planning to take a 12-week leave of absence yet.

Yes, the Ohio Civil Rights Commission flexed its muscle last week and used a 1977 law against sexual discrimination to order companies to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to pregnant workers.

But the real showdown on this issue is still coming, probably in early December, and it has all the elements of a political and ideological melee.

Democrats against Republicans, companies squaring off with the workers, the small business owners taking on the moms-in-waiting.

The battle also will once again illustrate the subtle tug-of-war that continues to be waged between the Democrats in Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration and the Republican-controlled state legislature.

And it will also demonstrate once again that rules and laws are flexible, to be bent when convenient, and that the only truth in politics is that power is in the hand of the beholder.

And some people think this is only about whether a mom gets to take time off to have a child.

The fight will take place before an obscure legislative panel the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review with an acronym that sounds like something Lee Iacocca would invent: JCARR.

Until last Thursday, pregnant women needed to rely upon the federal Family and Medical Leave Act to leave the workplace without pay or fear of losing their job or seniority.

Even the federal act was limited, however, to employers with more than 50 workers, and the pregnant worker needed to work at least 1,250 hours in the previous calendar year to be eligible.

A large group of workers in Ohio, around 445,000 according to Policy Matters, are not covered by the federal law, in large part because they work for small companies.

The commission’s rule rectifies that problem by applying the law to companies with four or more employees, and it makes a woman eligible upon being hired.

Small companies can object by claiming the leave imposes an undue hardship on their operations and they can place pregnant women in light-duty jobs.

The civil-rights commissioners maintain they are only clarifying a vague reference in the 1977 law that states companies must provide a ”reasonable” leave of absence for moms-to-be.

Lobbying organizations for small and large companies, like the National Federation for Independent Business-Ohio and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, are taking a different approach to fighting the commission.

They will argue before JCARR that the commission is overstepping its authority and writing, rather than administering, law.

JCARR, created in 1977, or the same year the law cited by the civil-rights commission was passed, is unique because the 10 legislators on the committee act as judges, not as lawmakers.

They decide whether rules implemented by departments and commissions comply with the laws passed by the Ohio General Assembly.

Currently, JCARR has six Republicans and four Democrats, and the GOP members will have to become judicial activists to decommission the civil-rights rule.

This would be a complete flip from just two years ago.

In March 2005, 270 school districts were fighting the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services over $67 million in aid to students with special needs.

JCARR Republicans, with Democrats opposed, exercised judicial restraint, held their hands up and said they had no authority to intervene in the divisive issue.

State Rep. Scott Oelslager, R-Plain Township, was the JCARR chairman in 2005. He repeatedly told witnesses who appeared before the panel, many with children seated in wheelchairs in the hearing room’s aisles, that JCARR does not make policy decisions.

”I know I sound like a broken record,” Oelslager said at one point, then told the witness to take his complaint to one of the legislature’s finance committees.

One Republican state Sen. Tim Grendell of Chesterland did seem to side with the school districts in 2005, but when he pushed the issue too fervently, he was removed from the panel by Senate President Bill Harris.

At the time, Grendell, a graduate of law schools at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Virginia, said, ”I was told I asked too many questions and didn’t understand the workings of JCARR.”

Two years later, Ohio has a Democrat in the governor’s chair and JCARR still has a 6-4 Republican majority.

With big and small business lobbying them on this issue, it will be interesting to see whether the Republicans take a different tack with the civil-rights commission.

It is clear that Democrats have gotten the message.

State Sen. Capri Cafaro, D-Girard, a JCARR member sounding a lot like Oelslager’s broken record noted this week that the committee’s job is not political or ideological.

Cafaro said JCARR only determines whether a state agency or commission is acting within its authority under law.

Need a final interesting twist to keep viewing?

Grendell, the lawyer who asked too many questions and didn’t understand the workings of JCARR, was placed back on the panel this year by the same person who removed him in 2005 Senate President Harris.

At least Grendell has a chance to be consistent.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer

By Jeff Coryell

House Speaker Jon Husted (R-Kettering) expressed opposition this week to the Ohio Healthy Families Act, proposed by a coalition called Ohioans for Healthy Families. (The group is primarily composed of unions but also includes the AARP, medical groups, and many Democratic elected officials and candidates.) The act would require companies with at least 25 employees to provide seven paid sick days a year (or a smaller, pro-rated number for part-timers). There are approximately 2.2 million Ohioans, about 42% of the workforce, who have no paid sick leave and must therefore choose whether to go to work sick or lose part of their pay.

As reported on the Columbus Dispatch blog The Daily Briefing, Husted said “When you’re the first state in the nation to do it, it sends a bad signal that you’re not trying to create a business-friendly environment, which in improving jobs might cost us jobs.” Ty Pine, legislative director for the National Federation of Independent Business/Ohio, also complains about the financial burden on small businesses: “We said this with the minimum wage, and it’s going to be true again: You’ve got ‘x’ number of dollars as a small-business person. You must provide workers’ comp, unemployment and now paid sick leave.”

A report by the think tank Policy Matters Ohio, however, finds that paid sick days actually save businesses money in the long run. Providing paid sick days can mean better disease containment, faster recuperation, and earlier treatment, which translate into saving money because fewer fellow employees get sick, duration of illnesses can be shortened, and workers can be more productive. Research by The Institute for Women’s Policy Research concludes that providing paid sick days would yield a net savings of more than $1.00 per worker per week, from reduced spread of illness, reduced turnover, and a healthier workforce.

The Policy Matters study also reveals that paid sick days help protect members of the general public from contracting illness. The proportion of workers with paid sick leave is particularly low in several occupations that have extensive public contact, such as retail trade (less than half); arts, entertainment and recreation (just over one-third); and accommodation and food service (less than one quarter). These three sectors combined have more than 670,000 Ohio workers without sick days. When those workers choose to work while sick, it means greater risk to the health of customers and patrons.

Mandatory paid sick leave makes Ohio healthier and a better place to be employed. Those are factors that should attract employers, not deter them. Given the overall savings to employers of providing paid sick days, the General Assembly should enact the law when it is presented to them for consideration early next year. If they do not act on the proposal, supporters can collect additional petition signatures and put the measure on the ballot in November 2008.

Ohio’s Advanced Energy Fund should be expanded and made permanent, according to this October 2007 report from Policy Matters Ohio. The fund uses grants, contracts, loans, linked deposits and production incentives to encourage a more renewable economy. A larger and more stable Advanced Energy Fund would encourage investment in clean energy products and services, stimulate development in clean energy, and reduce the use of polluting and foreign fuels. Ohio’s Advanced Energy Fund currently generates just $5 million a year through a surcharge on Ohio electric utility bills which adds 9 cents per customer per month. Of the 18 states that have such funds, Ohio has one of the smallest, despite the state’s size and high energy use. Such state funds leverage three dollars in private investment for every dollar of public expenditures, according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. The Policy Matters analysis found that while Ohio’s fund remains small and got off to a slow start, it has had similar positive results. Residential customers, housing developers, commercial and industrial businesses, local governments, educational institutions, nonprofit entities, and agricultural customers can apply for support from the Ohio fund. The report also makes additional recommendations on how to use an expanded fund.

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Energizing Event - Don’t miss the Midwest Conference on Labor in the New Energy Economy, which will provide union members and leaders with tools to help create a clean, job-producing economy. The North Shore Federation of Labor, the Ohio Apollo Alliance, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, and Policy Matters sponsor this first-of-its-kind event, at the Cleveland City Centre Crowne Plaza on October 22 and 23. Confirmed speakers include Ohio’s Energy Adviser Mark Shanahan, Apollo Alliance President Jerome Ringo, Blue Green Alliance Director and Steelworker David Foster, Cleveland labor leader Harriet Applegate and others. Join us to learn about green job training, clean energy investments, sustainable buildings and more.

A Healthy Standard - Many Ohio employers provide paid sick days, because they recognize that it is better for their customers, clients, workforce and productivity. But 2.2 million Ohio workers can not take a paid day off when they are sick, and 3.3 million can not take a paid day to care for a sick child or parent. A Healthy Standard examines a proposal to let Ohio employees earn up to seven paid sick days a year and finds that it will help ensure that those serving our food, caring for our children, and standing across the checkout counter from us are not contagious.

Welcome Wagon - We’re thrilled to welcome Piet van Lier as a new Senior Researcher, focused on education. Piet was most recently a Deputy Editor at Catalyst Cleveland, which reports on the Cleveland public schools. Piet, who has previously been a journalist, photographer, teacher, and human rights monitor, brings excellent writing and editing skills, substantive knowledge of education issues, a deep commitment to economic and social justice and an easygoing style to his new position. Learn more about Piet and the rest of us here.

You might have missed – The State of Working Ohio, released on Labor Day, found staggering increases in inequality; low job growth; rising productivity, hours and education; slight wage increases; modest progress on disparities; and slight unemployment declines. And that’s just the good news. The report concludes with recommendations to innovate in five areas where other states have bypassed us: investing in the future, creating more opportunity, constructing on-ramps to the middle class, building and protecting people’s assets and retaining strong public structures.

Would you pay 391% for a short term loan? - Attend The Perils of Payday Lending: How it Affects the Community and What We Can Do About It to talk about it with David Rothstein, Len Calabrese, Tom Allio and Jerome Walcott in University Heights at 7pm on October 29th.  Click here for more information, and to learn more about payday lending, read our report, Trapped in Debt: The Growth of Payday Lending in Ohio.

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Paying attention? If you clicked on the links in this report, you should be able to answer this simple quiz:

1. Is it too late to register for the fabulous conference on labor in the new energy economy?
2. How much could be saved if all eligible Ohio workers were guaranteed the ability to earn paid sick days?
3. How much more are families with children working than in the past?
4. On what boards of directors do Policy Matters Ohio staffers serve?
5. What is the interest rate on a payday loan in Ohio?

Click here for the answers.

That’s all!
The Policy Matters Ohio Team 

The Ohio Civil Rights Commission is considering clarifying Ohio rules to ensure that all pregnant women are guaranteed at least 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Policy Matters conducted a review of current literature on maternity leave in order to help inform the Commission’s decision on this issue. Twelve weeks is a minimum acceptable amount of time for women to give birth, recover, rest, get post-natal care, begin breastfeeding, bond with their babies, and provide for initial neo-natal follow-up care and immunizations. When employers do not provide sufficient maternity leave, women often return to work before they or their newborns are ready, or they leave their jobs. Forcing women to choose between motherhood and their livelihood is not good for society, children, women, or employers. Providing unpaid leave, on the other hand, is a modest burden for employers. In fact, 83 percent of all workers nationally already have access to unpaid family leave. Adequate maternity leave provisions benefit employers, women, children, and society increasing job retention and reducing employee turnover, increasing labor productivity by diversifying the labor force, and increasing the health and well-being of women and their children. The Civil Rights Commission should follow the lead of 18 other states and the national government, and provide a clear standard for maternity leave for all pregnant employees.

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Ohio is now the only one of the 50 states that reduces unemployment insurance by 100 percent of Social Security payments received by jobless workers. Thus, many older workers find when they lose their jobs that their unemployment insurance is reduced or cut to zero. Ohio Senate Bill 116, introduced by Sen. Joy Padgett and passed unanimously by the Senate, would eliminate this Social Security “offset,” as it is called. Policy Matters Research Director Zach Schiller testified in support of the bill at an October 9 hearing of the House Finance and Appropriations Committee.

Read Zach Schiller’s Ohio House Committee testimony reiterating a testimony to the Ohio Senate Committee in April, 2007.

Every other industrialized country, all of the world’s other most successful economies, and even nations much poorer than the United States have found a way to allow workers who are sick to stay home on occasion without suffering economically. Yet the United States fails to protect workers in this way. Many Ohio employers provide paid sick days, because they recognize that it is better for their customers, clients, workforce and productivity. But 2.2 million Ohio workers can not take a paid day off when they are sick, and 3.3 million can not take a paid day to care for a sick child or parent. Permitting employees to earn up to seven paid sick days will improve worker and child well being, reduce spread of disease, have savings that exceed the costs, and help ensure that those serving our food, caring for our children, and standing across the checkout counter from us are not ill. In a nation that expects people to work and contribute to the economy, a paid sick day policy helps ensure that workers can also take care of themselves and their families.

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Read our report – Outbreak in Ohio: Cost of the 2008 Norovirus Incident in Kent

Read our report – Paid Sick Days: Voices from Ohio